Bjarne Riis will disappear from official Tour de France publications. That's according to a report in The Guardian newspaper, where Tour organizer Christian Prudhomme said the Dane's name will not appear in official Tour record books following his recent confessions he used banned doping products to win the 1996 Tour. "Formally it's down to the (UCI) to disqualify him, but for us he can no longer be the winner and he has already been wiped from the road book [the official press guide] you will see at the start of the Tour," Prudhomme told reporter William Fotheringham. Riis became the first Tour winner to confess to using illegal performance-enhancing doping products. An existing eight-year statute of limitations will allow him to officially keep title, but Tour officials said they would not recognize the victory as legitimate. UCI officials publicly asked Riis to return the maillot jaune. In a May 25 press conference, Riis said: "My jersey is at home in a cardboard box. They are welcome to come and get it. I have my memories for myself."
This is Stalinist, and ridiculous. Riis won the Tour, but now, having admitted cheating, will be excised from its history, unlike other winners who probably doped but haven't admitted it - or can't: is anyone moving to strip the '98 Tour title from Marco Pantani, who was known to have doped and in fact died from a cocaine overdose?